


Everything you need

by DarkTwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Backstory, Bottom Sherlock, Detox, Explicit Sexual Content, Friendship, Greg Lestrade & Sherlock Holmes Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Greg Lestrade, Pre-A Study in Pink, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Protective Greg, Reluctant greg, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Sherstrade, Top Greg, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkTwin/pseuds/DarkTwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little interlude to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolie_Black/profile">Jolie_Black’s</a> epic story of how Greg Lestrade met Sherlock Holmes and helped him get clean, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3738400/chapters/8287450">"Aiding and Abetting"</a>. </p><p>After a relapse into his drug addiction that results in a near-fatal overdose, Sherlock runs away from the clinic where Mycroft has placed him, and takes refuge in Greg’s home to detox cold turkey instead. They spend four days cooped up together – four days that put Greg's patience to a harder test than he'd ever have imagined, but that also bring him closer to Sherlock as a human being than he’d ever have thought possible.</p><p>This little scene of mine is what I think happened on Sherlock's last night at Greg's place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything you need

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Aiding and Abetting](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738400) by [Jolie_Black](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolie_Black/pseuds/Jolie_Black). 



> This is what I think happened on the last night that Sherlock spends at Greg’s, between the first and the second part of Chapter 10 of ["Aiding and Abetting"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3738400/chapters/8287450), a couple of hours after Sherlock's announcement that he'll be leaving next morning. 
> 
> Although the original story is expressly marked "gen" and "friendship only", I’m proud to be posting this little spin-off with [Jolie_Black’s](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jolie_Black/profile) approval. Though not a Sherstrade shipper herself, she says she’s fine with people seeing a Sherstrade subtext in her story, and let me tell you that there is a delightful lot of it if you do want to see it. Go and read it, everyone. My attempt at a summary doesn’t do it justice by half. It’s the single most brilliant Sherlock-and-Greg piece of pre-canon backstory (shippy or not) that I’ve ever read.

Later that evening, on my way back from the bathroom to my own bed, I check on him one last time. Everything is quiet in his room, the lights are off, and the now familiar sight of Sherlock stretched out on the narrow bed fills me with an unexpected sense of calm and peace. He’s lying on his stomach, with his arms above his head. His face is turned away from me, but I can hear the sound of his breathing, even and regular.

Very careful not to make a sound, I cross my arms and lean against the jamb of the door, the wooden surface cool against my bare shoulder. The last thing I want to do is wake him needlessly, now that his body has found its way back to the blessed relief of plain and simple sleep. But it can do no harm if I just stand here watching him for another minute or so. He has truly earned his sleep, and I - or so I flatter myself - have earned to look on it for a moment, so glad at how far we’ve got together.

Sure, it will still take a long while - over a week probably - until he’ll be back to his former strength, and rid of the last side effects of that poison leaving his system. But the worst of it is undeniably already over. And tomorrow morning, he’ll be leaving here anyway. Strange. I’ve wished him to hell more than once over the past days, but now I could almost say that I’ll miss him.

Not that I’ll have time for that. There’ll be work to do, more than enough. I don't dare imagine what’s piled up in my in-tray while I was away from my desk for three whole days. Can’t remember when _that_ happened last. And I’ll need whatever free minutes I’ll have here at home to purge the place of all the remaining traces of Sherlock’s visit, before Judy comes back on Wednesday. No need to provoke more pointless arguments with her. So I’d better come to terms with it now: Those three days taken out of time and belonging to nobody but me and him are irrevocably over.

Sherlock’s duvet is threatening to slide down from the bed again. His bare feet hang over the edge of the mattress - slim, long, and probably very cold by now. I let my eyes travel upwards from the feet, checking whether at least the rest of him looks comfortable. The borrowed pyjama bottoms he’s wearing hang low on his hips, too wide around the waist for him, and leave the lower part of his back exposed. His skin is very pale, almost white, in the dim light. Must be cold, too.

I straighten up soundlessly, meaning to cover him up again properly before retreating to my own room, when he startles me almost out of my skin.

“Lestrade,” he says, not loudly but quite clearly, with no trace of sleepiness in his deep voice. “Come in, or go away. You’re irritating, hovering in the door like that.”

Acknowledging that there is no point in trying to become invisible all of a sudden, I take a few steps into the room. He turns over, props himself up on his elbow with his head in his hand, and our eyes meet.

“Just wanted to see that everything’s fine,” I tell him in a quiet voice.

He nods.

I sit down gingerly on the edge of his bed. He pulls his legs up a little to make room.

“So how are you feeling now?”

He contemplates his answer for a moment. “Empty,” he says then.

I think back to the endless hours we’ve spent in the bathroom this weekend, with me holding an almost continuously vomiting Sherlock up over the toilet, and I’m on the verge of a grin. But then I also remember that one terrible night earlier on, the night that we ended up spending with Sherlock writhing on the floor, and me literally sitting on him, twisting his arms half out of their sockets to keep him there and stop him running off to get another fix. So there are still two kinds of empty that he could be talking about, and I’d better make sure which one he means.

“Good empty or bad empty?” I ask him, and it never enters my mind that he could have meant something else entirely. 

“Empty empty,” he replies earnestly, only confusing me further.

“So, what’s missing?”

“You, I think.”

 I freeze.

Then I decide that I must have misheard.

I mean, I’m _married_. To a _woman_. And there may be about two dozen reasons why that didn’t work out, but that I’d prefer a bloke in my bed instead isn’t one of them. If he’s assuming that it is, it’s the first time I’ve ever known him to get his facts wrong. So what can this be but a ridiculous  misunderstanding?

“Does that mean what I think it means?” I ask in a carefully neutral voice.

“Well, even taking into account that you aren’t blessed with an exceptionally vivid imagination, Lestrade,” he quips, “I was hoping that you’d manage to figure that one out without my help.”

He’s mocking me with his words, but his eyes never leave mine, their fixed gaze strangely at odds with his light tone.

Jesus Christ. He means it.

Objections come flooding in at once, as quickly or even quicker than the blood that I can feel rising into my cheeks. And they all amount to one word: Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Unthinkable, even. He must have gone crazy after all, to ask me for this.

Who does he take me for, to think that I expected some sort of repayment when I took him into my house and into my care? And what gave him the idea that this is a currency I’d accept? Marital fidelity may no longer have much of a meaning for either me or Judy, but what exactly did I do to suggest that I was actively looking for someone else? And looking at _him_ , of all people?

I stand up abruptly, feeling a desperate need to put some physical distance between us, and quickly, before this gets out of hand. “Yeah, well, talking of managing without help,” I tell him, my voice even harsher than I intended, “guests in this household are welcome to toss off if it helps them to sleep, and unless they’re leaving anyway they even get fresh sheets next morning.”

“But - ?” he says, not abashed in the least.

“But,” I continue in the same firm tone, “even if I was convinced that that’s what you need right now, Sherlock, I don’t do pity fucks. Really not.”

And with that, I turn and walk away.

I’m almost at the open door when he speaks up quietly behind my back.

“What sorts do you do, then?”

I can hear no mischief in his voice, and no sarcasm either. Just a plain question. Except it isn’t, of course. I pause, then turn back towards him and cross my arms over my chest.

The true answer, of course, would be “no idea”. Because all I have to offer in terms of experience in that particular field is a blurry memory, buried deep, of messing around with a good-looking team mate after a match, just once, twenty years ago. Just out of curiosity, both of us dead drunk and giggling stupidly all the while. And never going the whole way anyway. Just a bit of silly groping. And never afterwards with anyone else, either. Never with a bloke.

“Oh, all sorts of sorts,” I hear myself say, doing my best to sound off-hand. “But don’t think you get to pick, or anything.”

Now a corner of his mouth does go up. “Shame. Sounded good.”

We look at each other in silence for a moment. Am I seeing things, or is there still something in his eyes that belies his light tone? Something despondent, disappointed?

But isn’t that exactly what I’ve just told him? That that isn’t a good enough reason for me to do something that I don’t want to do, and not a good enough reason for him to be asking?

Except he isn’t asking, of course. He never does. He never asks you outright when he thinks he needs something from you. He takes it without asking, or if that doesn’t work, he messes with your mind, he tricks you, he manipulates you, he wheedles you into it or cajoles you into it until you believe that it’s what _you_ want, too. I’ve seen him do it often enough, and he's done it to me more than once in the past few days, too. But he’s not going to do it to me now.

“And now you’ve gone over all your doubts and reservations at least twice,” he breaks in on my thoughts, the half-smile still on his face, “I hope you’ve discovered that none of them are valid.”

“On the contrary,” I snap at him. “They all are, and you know that perfectly well.” And before he gets the chance to detect the tone of rising panic that seems to have sneaked into my voice, I leave the room and close the door firmly behind me.  
  
I do the same with the bathroom door a moment later, except I lock that one, too. Then, without switching the lights on, I walk over to the washbasin and brace myself on it, my hands gripping the cold hard rim while I wait for my breathing to slow down again to a normal rate. Which it needs to, although I certainly didn’t run in here.

What the hell is the matter with me? Someone offers to sleep with me, and I blush like a schoolboy and start hyperventilating. And it's not even someone I'm particularly attracted to. I mean, he’s certainly easy on the eye when he’s in good health, but he isn’t now, his face still all hollow cheeks and dark smudges under his eyes. And anyway, I've watched this guy undress and get in and out of my bathtub, stark naked, half a dozen times over the past days, and it never did anything for me.

And it’s not that he really wants me anyway. He just wants someone, it appears, anyone, and I happen to be available. Or so he thinks.

But that isn't true. I know his methods, I know how he goes about making people do things they don't want to do. But I didn't see any of that just now. He's got a mind-boggling repertoire of manipulation techniques at his command. Why would he choose _not_ to use any of them? Unless he was just being genuine, for once?

He _was_ just trying to say thank you, dammit. In his own weird and clumsy way, because he doesn't know how else. And he got it wrong, of course, like he always gets these things wrong, the social niceties, the good manners. No reason to read anything more into it, and no reason for _me_ to be embarrassed. I'm just not used to this kind of compliment any more. Because when was the last time that anyone offered to sleep with me, not out of a sense of duty, not as a second best when no one better was within reach? I truly can’t remember.

I raise my head and look into the mirror. It’s almost as if I can see his face in there, too, right at my shoulder. Of course he isn’t there, there’s nothing to be seen. In the background, there's just the reflection of a couple of towels and Judy’s dressing gown hanging on their hooks on the back of the closed door. In the foreground, next to my own tired face, nothing but empty space. 

Good empty or bad empty?

Holy crap.

Before I can stop it, my mind flashes back to all those moments in the last three days when I touched him, and he me. There were many, a lot more than I'd ever have expected, with someone who holds himself aloof and keeps himself apart as he always does in public. But all of those moments of contact happened for no other reason than first to establish the ground rules, and then for comfort, for assistance, for help.

Or did they?

My fist smashing into his face on that first night, when I thought that he was just being a royal pain in the arse, high as a kite and spoiling for a fight, and when I meant to put him in his place. He asked for that one, and he took it as if he knew he deserved it, but did I feel as bad about giving it to him as I should have?

And on the same night, right here where I'm standing now, my body trapping his against this same washbasin, bending him over it with his arm twisted behind his back, pressing against the back of his thighs to keep him in place, my hand on the back of his head, ducking it under the taps to get rid of what I thought was another man’s mess in his hair. I hated that idea, even though it wasn’t true, but why exactly did I hate it so much that it felt good to hurt him for it in return?

Only hours later, my fingers around his wrists, holding him down on the bed when the pain in his legs got so unbearable that he wanted to punch them. For hours on end, I could feel him alternating between struggling against my hold and almost melting into it, now unwilling, now grateful to relinquish control. Did I always release him again as soon as I safely could?

On the next morning, my arms around his chest, holding him up while he was being sick, sometimes so violently that it made him tremble with exhaustion. I'd tighten my hold on him then, his back against my chest, both of us drawing deep breaths in unison, his head tilted back against my shoulder and his sweaty face so close to mine. Did I really always let go at the first opportunity then, too, always exactly as soon as he was able again to hold himself upright on his own?

And that one time, on his second night here, when I had him on the floor in that merciless grip, reduced to pain compliance as the only way left to me to get through to him, and he in his frenzy writhing and twisting under me like an eel and bucking up against me as if, Jesus, stop thinking about it _now._

It seems I’m the one who’s in need of sticking his head under the cold tap right now. And it's not only my head that's screwing with me. It's the rest of my body, too.

I push myself away from the sink. A minute further on, even a full cold shower will barely help anymore, if I keep letting my mind wander down that particular path. I clench my hands into fists, try counting the breaths I draw. It’s no use.

Yes, it would have been absurd to see anything more in all these moments, at the time. But in hindsight, and taken all together, it’s as if what he’s suggesting now was only waiting to happen. As if we’ve been practising for it all along, dancing around each other, getting to know each other, finding out what works and what helps when you’re feeling rotten. With unexpected results, at times. Like now.

Letting me watch him struggle through the three worst days of the detoxing process, hasn’t he  already stripped himself bare to me anyway, mind, body and soul? And hasn’t he done it without the least reserve, with absolute, total, unconditional trust that he was doing it in the right hands? And haven’t I let him do it, accepted and acknowledged the trust he put in me, and been proud of it? So is what he wants us to engage in now really any more intimate than we’ve already been? Isn’t it, in fact, the last thing that was still missing to complete that journey?

Damn the bastard, he _was_ right. As usual.

And maybe he’s not so far off the mark after all. I’ve been his jailor (lately promoted to probation officer), his bodyguard, his nurse, his nanny and his washerwoman all in a single weekend. Is it so strange to assume, then, that I'd make a passable bedfellow, too?

I didn't have a huge lot of experience in all those other jobs either, nor did he give me a lot of time to prepare for the task, turning up on my doorstep without warning, already twitching and shivering and barely able to keep himself upright. And yet I never heard him complain that I was being insufficient. That I wasn't able to take care of his needs. That I disappointed him in any way.

Am I going to give him a reason for that now, at the eleventh hour?

And anyway, since when does not being used to compliments mean you’re not allowed to accept them?

With hands that are no longer trembling, I open the door of the mirror cabinet to find what's needed, half hoping and half dreading that we might have to call it off after all, on account of unresolvable technical difficulties. But the flat cardboard box that I always keep in there to bridge the gap, whenever I come into contact with anything potentially nasty at work and my test results aren't back from the lab yet, is still sitting there on the top shelf. And next to it stands the small plastic bottle that Judy and I got a couple of months back, for a very short-lived and totally unsuccessful attempt at injecting a bit of adventure and fresh excitement into our marital life. I take a deep breath, pick up both, and return to Sherlock's bedroom.

He's still where I left him, lying on his side, his head pillowed on his folded arm, his eyes half-closed. When he hears me enter, they open fully, but slowly, sleepily. And then he smiles. Just a plain, little, sweet smile.

I'm not sure what else I expected – maybe one of his trademark snide comments, “God, Lestrade, what took you so long?” But I know that this is a special moment. I'm being made privy to a well-kept secret: That even with Sherlock Holmes, sometimes a smile is just a smile.

I wish I could be as sure though that even with Sherlock Holmes, a fuck can be just a fuck, too. Because it better had be, or we'll both be up to our necks in trouble after this. 

“Right,” I say. “So, just in case - you know you don’t have to do this just for my sake, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he replies evenly. “You don’t have to, either. You’re invited, that’s all.”

For a moment, neither of us speaks, he because he doesn’t feel the need to, and I because I can’t seem to find the right words. I still need this clarified, I really do. I need to be sure that this will be just a momentary thing, with no strings attached. That tomorrow morning we’ll be able to look each other in the eye, and that it won’t have changed anything. But saying all that out loud would sound mean, somehow, ungenerous.

And then he reads my mind and gives me the answer, without me having to ask. Without a word, he rolls over, props himself up on his elbows and knees, head down, and just waits. It makes my stomach clench and my mouth go dry.

God, no. Not like that. Not like he’s just - 

I step up to the bed, sit down again on the mattress, and put a hand on his back, down where his borrowed nightwear leaves it exposed. He neither flinches at the touch, nor leans into it – just lets it happen. His skin feels cold under my hand.

“Sherlock?”

“Mmh?”

“I’ll want to see your face.”

He tenses under my hand, and there is another silence.

“Easier this way,” he mutters into the pillow then.

He may be talking about himself or about me, and he may be talking about mere technicalities or something else, I don’t know. But either way, I'll be damned if I'll let myself get carried away, without a means of checking and seeing immediately whether he's fine with it or not.

“It's a condition, not a request,” I insist.

I can tell that he doesn't like it much, but after a moment, he complies, and turns back over.

“And I’ll need you to tell me what to do,” I continue. “Because I’m really not an expert.”

“I’ve told you what I want.” There is an almost defensive tone in his voice now, and somehow it’s a comfort to know that he’s finding it just as hard as I do to put these things into words.

I lean over, and very gently run the tip of my thumb over the fading traces of the bruise on his cheekbone that my fist left there a couple of nights ago. “And you’re really sure more pain is what you need right now?

He turns his head away abruptly, shaking my hand off, but doesn't answer.

“Are you, Sherlock?”

“The right sort of pain would be good now, yes,” he says to the ceiling. 

I snort, and shake my head at him. “You can never just say ‘please’, can you?”

After a moment, he meets my eyes again, and the corners of his mouth go up into the most delightful grin I’ve ever seen from him. “Make me.”

Pity didn’t get him there, but a challenge like that I can accept. And I don’t give a damn right now whether he knew that or not.

“Make me,” he says, eyes sparkling with mischief, and I do. In the end, I do. Bloody hell, who would ever have thought that?

The ground rules established, he wastes no more time but gets down to business. He kicks off his pyjama bottoms, never bothering with the t-shirt, swings up his long legs and purposefully stuffs a part of the duvet under his hips for support. And a moment later, we’re right in the middle of it already.

“Give me your hand,” he says and, with his own hand over mine, guides me through the necessary preliminaries, with no more than a few muttered words of direction. They’re very technical, but I don’t mind – I really need him to show me, and he does, taking care of himself and of me, too. Because at one point, he raises his free hand to my face, and runs his fingers along my eyebrows, quite strongly, as if to smooth out a crease.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“Trying to make you relax,” he replies, amused. “You’re making it look like a chore.” 

“And what was it supposed to be?” I quip back at him.

“Just a simple way of raising endorphin levels?” he suggests. 

“Whose, yours or mine?”

“Oh, all around. Even your neighbours’, depending on how loud you tend to be.”

Trust him to try and wind me up, even with my fingers where they are.

“Ready,” he says a moment later, serious again, and instantly, I can feel my heart beat almost up to my throat.

Preparing myself takes only a few moments, but I really need those to gather up the courage to accept the most flattering - and the most frightening - invitation I’ve ever received. Because that's what it is, he waiting there for me, with his legs up and far apart and his hands on my shoulders, so confident that I'll somehow get it right.

“I'm not sure - “ I begin, second thoughts threatening to overwhelm me at the last moment.

“Straight in,” he instructs me, and smiles. “Shy doesn’t suit you.”

And then it's actually happening. A dozen different sensations come crashing over me like a giant wave, and I'm struggling to breathe, barely able for a moment to get my head above water again.

“Go on,” he encourages me when I hesitate. “Go on,” every time I’m unsure whether this isn’t too much, too fast, because that’s certainly what it feels like to me. “Go on,” although a sharp intake of breath tells me that he's not adjusting quite as effortlessly as he wants me to believe. “Go on,” even when his fingers start scrabbling for a hold on the bedclothes and a sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead. “Go on,” until I can barely believe that this is even possible, the two of us fused together with not a fraction of an inch between us.

Don’t look down, I tell myself. Don’t look at what you’re doing, because you might just faint at the enormity of what you’ll see.

When there is no further to go, he stills. His eyes, fixed on the ceiling above my head until now, flutter closed. He draws in a long, long breath through his nose, and when he releases it again, I can feel him beginning to relax.

In fact, he’s quiet for so long that I’m beginning to suspect that he’s fallen asleep. Then, just when I mean to ask him whether he’s still with me, his lips form a single silent word. “Move.”

I try, and to my surprise, it's actually possible. And not so difficult after all, nor so different, either. I try slow but firm, and he responds with an appreciative hum.

Then a moment later, he bites his lip and draws a hissing breath, and his hands grasp my hips, steering me – no, not away. Whatever exactly that was, he wants more of it, not less.

“Alright?” I mutter.

“Stop asking,” he whispers, his fingers digging into my skin. “Just there. Just – there.”

What a strange and beautiful creature he is, who will ruthlessly take from you what he wants, but then, if he’s found you worthy of it, will give it all back with equal generosity. Even if it’s only for this one single time, he makes me feel drunk with it, drunk with being wanted, drunk with being trusted, drunk with _him_.

All of a sudden, slow and firm isn't enough any more. There is no more need for instructions either. He’s shown me what works best, and now he’s getting it. I put my hands under his knees and push his legs up towards his shoulders for a better angle, until he yelps with the strain and whimpers with delight all in the same breath. And God, that does the trick. In no more than a moment, he's already tossing his head from side to side, eyes squeezed shut, one hand on himself and one hand in my hair, keeping me close or keeping me at arm’s length, I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that it’s easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. He’s truly handed himself over to me, and I’m lost.

 And he’s loving it, so much that I put my hand over his to slow him down a bit. Not to be a tease, just because I don’t want this to be over too soon. He makes a little noise of protest, but I insist, and that is the moment when he does say it, “God, _please_.” It’s more a gasp than actual words, but I can _feel_ him say it, too, literally feel how badly he means it, _needs_ it. And before I know it, I’m not slowing him down at all any more, but urging him onwards and then racing right after, until his hand slips out of my damp hair back onto my shoulder and grips it hard enough to bruise.

“Hold – “ he says, but it’s too late. He doesn't hold off, or back, or whatever he was trying to say; he lets himself go, with a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him, high pitched and long, ridiculous and wonderful. I do look down then, and what I see drags me right to the edge and over, too, before I’m quite aware of it. 

When he opens his eyes afterwards, it takes him a moment - and a visible effort - to focus on my face, and when he’s managed it, he smiles sleepily.

Jesus, he can be sweet when he wants to.

We separate only when my arms start trembling with the strain of holding myself up. I make an attempt at cleaning up some of the mess with a corner of the sheet, but he clearly doesn’t care. He just curls up, all sticky and sweaty still, like a newborn kitten in its basket. His eyelids are already drooping again.

“Got everything you need then?” I ask, as long as he can still hear me. It’s getting to be an old joke, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just makes a contented little sound in reply, something between a hum and a purr that nobody could mistake for a “no”.

“Good.”

It's true, too. It hardly needs my hand on the small of his back to confirm it, but I put it there anyway. And yes. For the first time since he came here to my place, his skin feels warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Jolie, for letting me play in your world! You said that you didn't mind explicitness, that "entirely consensual and respectful of each other" was a must, and that you couldn't see them in an established relationship, but just a momentary, one-off thing would be fine. I sincerely hope I've managed to comply with all of that.


End file.
